Ed Gorman: Ticket to Ride

The Whitman funeral h ome is where the proper people get themselves buried. Proper translates to those who can afford it. When I played Little League, which I did to please my dad, the funeral home sponsored a team, but nobody wanted to be on it. Who wanted corpses to sponsor you? We all made fourth-grade jokes about what the real funeral home logo looked like. Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi figured prominently in our imaginary artwork.

But if you absolutely have to die, the Whitmans will give you the fanciest of send-offs. They use two hearses instead of one to lead the cars to the cemetery, and Willis Whitman, who for years has been the baritone in the barbershop quartet here, will throw in a song at graveside, the gag being that if you pay him a little more he won’t sing. As I said, this is where the wealthy go. It used to be Protestant only, but over the past ten years a few Catholics have been boxed up and gift-wrapped in the Whitman basement. Papist money spends just as well as Martin Luther’s. Jewish people go to Iowa City. Everybody else goes to Sweeny’s. Mr. Sweeny is a Catholic and Mrs. Sweeny is a Methodist, so it’s what you might call corpse-friendly to all kinds of Christians.

There was no way I was ever going to get past the various barriers Linda Raines would have put up at the mansion. I would have to try and talk to her outside of her estate. The logical place was Whitman’s. They’d no doubt be making arrangements this morning. Linda’s sports car would be easy to spot.

The coffee shop directly across the street from the funeral home made waiting her out tolerable. It didn’t have air conditioning, but it had enough fans and open windows to cool things down several degrees. I sat at the counter until a window table opened up. I drank iced coffee and smoked cigarettes and read the Des Moines Register. Around ten thirty, a quick little red car driven by an elegant brunette wearing a red scarf and Jackie Kennedy sunglasses pulled into the parking lot on the side of Whitman’s.

As always, she moved with pure purpose. She’d picked up the military bearing from her old man. She was out of her car and mounting the front steps as if somebody was chasing her.

While I waited for her reappearance I thought about Molly asking me to represent Doran. He was a con. That I didn’t doubt. But to have somebody associated with our peace group accused of murdering a war hero-that discredited all of us. And more important, it discredited our political position. I had to represent the bastard.

She stayed just about thirty-five minutes. She stood on the small front porch talking to Harold Whitman, Jr., fifth generation of friendly ghouls. The body language didn’t tell me anything. She was as rigid as always, all those perfectly blended curves wasted by what she obviously considered finishing school propriety.

When the tip of her tan high heel reached the sidewalk I was out of the coffee shop and bolting across the street. She was in the parking lot before I reached her.

“Mrs. Raines, Mrs. Raines.”

She didn’t even turn around to see who was calling her. “Leave me alone.”

“I need to ask you two questions.”

“I told you to leave me alone.” But then I’d always thought Scarlett O’Hara was an obnoxious bitch, too.

I beat her to her car, leaned against the door so she had no choice but to face me.

“Oh, God, it’s you.”

“I’m sorry about your father.”

“I’m sure you are. That’s why you had that rally. That’s why you’re trying to tear down everything he fought for.”

“Doran didn’t kill him.”

“Have you ever heard of mourning, McCain? That’s what I’m doing. My father has been murdered and you’re attacking me in the parking lot of the funeral home. The judge is a family friend but you’ve always been something of a joke. A very bad one. Now get out of my way before I call the police.”

“Cliffie, you mean?”

She leaned forward and punched me in the shoulder. “Get out of my way.”

“I need to know if your father had any enemies. Ones who’d been giving him grief recently.”

Then she cheated. Behind those shades tears began to run, streaming down her perfect cheeks to her perfect little chin. “Will you be a goddamned gentleman for once and leave me to my mourning?” She was having a difficult time talking through her tears.

“Oh, hell,” I said. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.” Every once in awhile you’re able to see yourself through somebody else’s eyes. What would I be like if my father had just died and some creep was bothering me the way I was bothering her?

I reached out, unthinking, to touch her arm. She twisted away from me. “Just let me get in my car and get out of here.” She was still crying.

I stood aside immediately. I opened the door for her. She eased into her seat. I tried not to notice how her skirt rode up on those fine fine legs. She backed up fast, wheeled around fast, and left fast.

That old Sam McCain magic was working just swell.

On the way back to my office, I passed by the library. Well, I’d planned to just pass by, but when I saw the small group gathered at the bottom of the steps, I pulled my ragtop over to the curb and parked. The concrete lions on either side of the staircase watched me suspiciously the way they had been since I was checking out Hardy Boys mysteries in fifth grade.

Officer Bill Tomlin had his notepad out and was talking to Trixie Easley, the chief librarian. Two or three people in the crowd were pointing to the glass doors at the top of the stairs.

COMIE! appeared in dripping red letters across the doors. Whoever had put it there wasn’t going to be taking home any prizes from a spelling bee. He or she had obviously meant COMMIE. Of course it could have been intentionally misspelled to make people think an illiterate had done the work. The library had most likely been the target because Trixie Easley had been one of the main organizers of the rally.

Molly left the crowd at the bottom of the stairs and went up to the door and started snapping photographs for the paper. She managed to look brand-new despite the heat, having changed clothes again. A pink blouse and short black skirt reminded me that even if we hadn’t been soul mates, we’d been body mates. When she turned back, she saw me and waved. It wasn’t a happy wave. It was an urgent one.

She was breathless by the time she reached me. I leaned against a parking meter.

“Harrison’ll never get a fair trial in this town, McCain.”

“They have any idea who might have done this?”

“Did you hear what I said?” She was loud enough and angry enough to win the attention of several folks standing at the bottom of the library stairs.

“Yeah, I heard. I just don’t want to be reminded of who I’m trying to help.”

“He’s a patriot, McCain. A real patriot. Not like these phony bastards from the VFW who charged into the newspaper office this morning. They want the publisher to write a front-page editorial and list the names of all the people at the rally last night.”

It was too hot to argue. My shirt was starting to feel glued to my back and I had to keep wiping sweat from my eyes. “Look, first of all, they have a perfect right to be mad, all right? Veterans of Foreign Wars, does that ring any bells? That means that they fought and risked their lives. Harrison didn’t. I don’t agree with them about Vietnam, but we have to respect what they’ve done. And second of all, even if they publish a list of names-which I sure as hell don’t agree with-it’ll look pretty much like the same people who signed that letter to the paper protesting the war.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

“Meaning if somebody wants to harass us, a new list of names won’t be much added help. They’ve got the letter we all sent to the paper. Your paper.”